Had another smelly shower and packed up, then waited in the rain for 30 minutes for the bus to pick us up and take us to the hire car. I’d made a bit of a mistake when booking the car and picked a manual – I can drive one but haven’t for ages and would have preferred an auto but to change would cost 30 Euro a day extra so we decided against it. I told Song to be prepared to kangaroo along the road for a while till I got used to it. Got in the car and there was no steering wheel or pedals – Iceland has driverless cars! Then Song pointed out it was a left hand drive. It also turned out it was an auto, so the guy either gave us the wrong car or they didn’t have the one we booked.
We did pay for the gps – I had pre loaded Google maps but wasn’t sure to trust it and didn’t want to be lost in the middle of Iceland – even though there is basically one main road.
We headed out, the weather was not great – about 6c, raining and very windy, and it wasn’t long before we pulled over to take photos, the scenery was amazing. Carried on for a while but had to stop again, and I could see us stopping every 5 minutes, it is spectacular. Photos will be uploaded.
We stopped off for a coffee at a roadside cafe chain and tried some of the local cakes and I think it’s the last time – very sweet.
Continued on, stopping frequently to take photos, the scenery is spectacular. There are also fields with the famous Icelandic horses, which I’d never heard of. Song took some photos, including a selfie.
Drove up a hill that turned into a mountain and it started to snow as the temperature dropped to 0, and the road was covered in snow and visibility dropped dramatically. I was glad the car had heated seats. After about 10 minutes we started to go downhill, visibility improved and the snow turned to rain. Arrived at the hotel at about 16:45, the drive took about 7.5 hours.
Headed out to the town centre, walked for 10 minutes and came out the other side – it’s not a big place. Looked around for something to eat but it was mostly fast food. Found a place and happened upon the 3rd best restaurant in Akureyri – not our intention and to be honest we would rather have had a cheap meal but they didn’t have the menu outside and it wasn’t until we sat down that we saw the prices – about 30-40 aud for a main. I was prepared to get up and leave, it’s unlikely we’ll be back and it wouldn’t have bothered me but Song didn’t fancy going out into the cold and rain again so we ordered. I had a hamburger and Song had tempura prawns. I also ordered a beer (again). Both meals were very good, cost about $70.
Went back to the hotel – the Northern Lights activity was supposed to be good but it was cloudy so unsure if we would see them.
We kept an eye on the sky but it was completely cloudy so went to sleep.
